Ghosts of Christmas Past
by JediKnightMarina55
Summary: Five days. Five Assassins. Five stories. A fight to start again after an apparent defeat. Five days to seize five lives once again, before the war starts again. John Andrew Newell. Rebecca Crane. Shaun Hastings. William Miles. Desmond Miles. They have saved the world once. Can they do it again?
1. Dec 21 - John Andrew Newell

_**As I promised, here's the Christmas Special mini series!**_

_**Well actually it was born as a way to save Desdes to justify him being alive and well in the long story. But then again... I hope you like it!**_

* * *

_**Ghosts of Christmas Past**_

Dec 21, 2012 – John Andrew Newell

Jack hauled himself up on the rocks and looked around. Above him, the solar storm faded harmlessly in an amazing sight, just like wizard Gandalf's fireworks in the books he had read as a kid.

Just, it wasn't fireworks. It was something that might have killed them all… and had killed only one instead.

He had arrived late.

"Go on!_ Walk on!_"

Despite he did not see Mars, He Who Leads, he could hear his voice.

Despite Desmond had crossed the threshold, still the one in the past had been called the god of war encouraged him to finish his journey.

He could see a minivan. Three shapes in the semidarkness.

He walked faster, then he sprinted forward.

"_Run, Marcello, or they'll get the ball!"_

_Cosimo squeaking by his side, covered in mud and snow._

_A ball of rags in his hands._

_Icy mud under his feet. Four of the Machiavelli kids in front of him, ready to steal the ball or defend their caccia._

_Flavia and Domenico behind him, ready to act if the ball was stolen._

"_Cosimo, catch it!"_

He stopped, putting a hand in front of his eyes. He really didn't need that. Not the Bleeding Effect. Not then.

He gently pushed away Bill, Rebecca and Shaun with a hand, and started muttering under his breath.

"My name is John Andrew Newell. Jack to my friends. I want to become a writer. My father's name was Cameron Newell, and he took his life in an Abstergo cell. I was ten and it was 2000. My mother's name is Beatrice Pagano. It's December 21, 2012. I have the Philosopher's Stone."

He felt someone grabbing his shoulder.

_He broke free from Guido's grasp and caught Cosimo's pass. He dodged Baccina's tackle and tossed the ball towards the improvised caccia._

_One more point for them._

"_Marcello! It's cold, I'm tired, I don't want to play anymore!"_

_He had to hold himself back not to tell the little spoilsport Domenico to get lost._

"_Lasciami in pace_… leave me alone, Shaun!"

"Jack, listen, there's nothing in there." Shaun sprung up in front of him and put both hands on his shoulders.

"I'm not looking for some_thing_" Jack replied pushing him aside again. He was inside the Great Temple now. He could catch a glimpse of a humanoid figure floating away before Shaun grabbed him again by the wrist.

"The something you're not looking for killed Desmond, you dimwit!" Shaun replied again. Were it tears what had appeared in his eyes?

"_What now?" Cosimo intervened. "We can't play with one less man. And three versus three is boring!"_

_Marcello's gaze immediately fixed on Alessio, who was leaning on one of the walls of his house._

"_Alessio! Do you want to play with us?"_

"Shaun… _I know what we have to do_!"

With his free hand, he fumbled in his pockets and pulled out the Philosopher's Stone.

"When I ran away, after that Animus session in the catacombs of Paris… I _knew_ where I had to go. I knew what I had to look for. _La città che nel Batista mutò 'l primo padrone._ That city which to the Baptist changed his patron! Remember, Shaun? Mars had told me to meet him in the place where he was called the patron! Florence!"

Shaun raised his eyebrows.

"The Baptistry of St. John?"

Jack nodded.

"There's a Vault under it. Some freerunning and Eagle Vision to find the door… and then I just had to speak out those verses of Dante's to open it."

Rebecca and Bill had joined them. They looked puzzled. But he could see a hint of hope on Rebecca's and Shaun's faces.

"Do you think you can do it?" Rebecca asked.

"It's the only solution we have, no?"

Jack juggled with the Stone and walked forward, towards the last room of the Temple.

_Marcello walked the few steps parting him from his friend. Alessio had ignored him twice. As usual, when Cosimo was in the way, he kept acting like a dimwit._

"_I'm not asking you to play with him."_

"_I would anyway if I accepted."_

If what he had apprehended from the Book in the London sanctuary in the last two months was true, he would only have needed to touch Desmond with the Stone and _wanting_ him to come back.

But all the mind training he had had in the previous days was of no use when he saw the body of the Assassin on the ground.

He fell to his knees, and the memories of the ball game faded, leaving the place to a cramped room, stale air, a freezing November night, a book on his knees _and his mentor leaving the world._

"Wake up, John! Don't give up now!"

Mars was still on his side. He could see him. Bill, Rebecca and Shaun were backing away, and Rebecca had let slip a gasp.

Jack stood up, got close to the shape on the ground and shoved the Stone in his hand.

_Come back to us, Desmond._

A sort of flash went across the room. The Stone crumbled and vanished once and for all.

"_Come on, Alessio, come with us!"_

_Cosimo, too, had gotten close to them._

"_Do you want me to say sorry? All right, I'll say sorry, but now come, please, play with us!"_

_Alessio sighed and left the wall._

"_All right, all right, I'll play, but just for this time."_

A grunt. Two fingers stirred. Then the whole hand. Then, nothing.

"Shaun! Your glasses!" Jack reached backwards and waited for Shaun to leave his glasses in his hand.

Nothing arrived.

"Come on, Shaun, get a move on!"

At the second attempt, Jack had the glasses in his hand. He put them under Desmond's nose. A circle of steam covered the nearest lens.

"Nice one, Newell, you steamed them up!"

Then, as Bill and Rebecca had already bent over Desmond, the _reason_ for the steam came to his mind.

"_Desmond!_"


	2. Dec 22 - Rebecca Crane

_**This maybe was the hardest part - I had a BAD writer's block but I had to overcome it.**_

_**I say, I made a promise, didn't I?**_

_**If you haven't read Assassin's Creed: Inheritance, Rusty is Rebecca's dog.**_

_**Brace yourselves, Shaun is next!**_

* * *

Dec 22, 2012 – Rebecca Crane

"So what will you do now? Are you going home?"

Rebecca sighed and closed her gym bag.

"Bill gave us some days to see our families. I'll have to catch a pair of trains, but I guess it will be worth it."

In front of her, Jack had dug his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and sniffled.

"Yeah, Shaun told me."

He shook his head.

"He has nowhere to go. He had broken all ties, hadn't he?"

"Is he staying here?" Rebecca got to her feet. She could not wait to get home, but she felt for Shaun, after the years spent putting up with him. Bill had told them to spend some time with their families, but no family was waiting for him.

"No, he's going to London anyway, he left hours ago. He volunteered to bring back here something the Assassins in there have found."

"What?"

"Well nothing has been confirmed but… probably, buried deep under the Tower of London… we're not sure… but Ezio Auditore's grave seems to have been moved there. Also because as far as it seems they have found a book of memories written by Flavia in there, and that's what Ahsoka and Smeagol… I mean, Sharifa and Matthew… want to be brought here and examined. There could be something big in it."

He shook his head again.

"Sorry for the lapsus. The Watchmen have codenames, so we can pass ourselves off as some RPG on the net. I'm Neville, for example, simple assonance with my surname. Sharifa Pritchard is Ahsoka because… well, of the striped hat she always wears. Matthew Ackermann is Smeagol, and if you see him eating you'll understand why. Each of us has a name referring to his or her past, to similarities… or even on play on names like me or Bill."

"Bill? He never mentioned a codename. Or being a Watchman in general."

Jack suppressed a laugh.

"Yeah, he didn't appreciate it a lot when my mom gave him _Bilbo_ as a codename. I guess he has never read The Hobbit, 'cause it's actually an ambiguous name for who doesn't know… Anyway, if you descend from some important Assassin of the past, you're a Watchman, and that's that. If Desmond wakes up, he'll surely be our most commended man. Which makes me think, he'll need a codename."

Rebecca forced a grin. She hoped Jack was sure of what he had done. Of course Desmond was breathing again, and Bill had felt more than once a pulse growing stronger, but was that enough to consider him out of danger?

"_Clay_. Clay was another, wasn't he?"

Jack bitterly smirked.

"Clay Kaczmarek. _Skywalker_, as we called him. Never met him face to face, but maybe he was the one I felt closest to in the group. All in all, we were almost related. At a point he sent me an email on Christmas Day, I was nineteen or something like that. Hadn't he told you?"

Rebecca shook her head in denial. Jack sighed.

"There's no rule that forbids a Watchman to speak about the team with other Assassins. But in the end, who knows why, we are all a bit secretive until we are exposed."

Rebecca picked up her bag and walked towards the door.

"Maybe it's been better this way. Not even Shaun and Lucy knew, and in the end, seeing what Lucy has done… if there's someone who mustn't know about the Watchmen, I bet that's Abstergo."

She left the room, turned her mp3 player on, walked through some hallways, got out of the sanctuary and found herself in a suburb street, then she walked towards the town center.

_One by one, only the good die young_, Brian May's voice sang as she got on a train, and Rebecca could not help proving him right.

For once, she did not want to talk to anyone.

She had seen too many people dying.

Hannah. Clay. Lucy, even if maybe she had asked for it. And Desmond, was he really safe?

It seemed just like if she could see them at the window, among the people.

She could not believe she was in the world again, in the simple and boring world she had helped saving.

She just could not conceive that those four boring hours of travel would have taken her home. If she really could still call it home. She got off the first train and caught a second one, almost without thinking, as she kept seeing her friends out of the window.

A speaker announced the last station, Rebecca got off and started the last stage of her journey, walking, towards home.

She did not even have the keys anymore. Could her parents be in?

A bark interrupted the stream of her thoughts. A white and brown bolt crossed the snow-covered lawn in front of her house and started jumping towards her knees.

Rusty had recognized her, like Argos with Odysseus.

She knew the problems had only begun. She knew that once she would have come back to the Headquarters the road would have been only uphill.

But what mattered now was that she was home once again.


	3. Dec 23 - Shaun Hastings

**_I have less and less time but I promise you'll have the Christmas Eve and Christmas episodes - they're the most important so I HAVE to write them._**

**_Next is Bill!_**

**_Insieme per la Vittoria!_**

* * *

December 23, 2012 – Shaun Hastings

Somewhere in the small room, an old radio was playing a not-so-old Christmas song.

Shaun was still bent on his computer, gathering data from anywhere he could get them. If William really wanted to put Jack Newell in the Animus to get him rid of the Bleeding Effect, he had to reset the data, create new character entries and improve the ones he already had with the book Pritchard and Ackermann had found.

He could not say he appreciated having to hurry up again, but making database entries again for someone who would have needed to read them… it kept his mind clear. He couldn't explain it in any other way.

He felt useful, one more time. Even if from behind the front line as always, he would have been one more time in a team to save the world.

He hinted at a grin when his roommate for those days, Ackermann, laid a cup of tea near his workspace, and muttered a thank you, then he focused his attention on the screen again.

"We have translated in English about half of the book in the last weeks" Matthew Ackermann mumbled. "If Nev… Jack… has to end what he started in the Animus, at least, if these pages are examined, you'll be able to understand what memories need to be synched in order to free him from the Bleeding Effect."

Shaun turned his chair and grabbed his cup.

"I've heard him speaking the same sentences about himself again and again. Desmond had never thought about that" he hinted at a smirk. "Had he _told us_… had Jack told us he had immediately understood what Mars had meant! He could have… we could have known about Juno before getting there…"

But could have existed another way to avoid the Apocalypse?

Or would have Desmond chosen to sacrifice himself anyway?

Shaun hadn't trusted Jack until the last moment, until the moment in which he had shoved the Philosopher's Stone in Desmond's blackened hand. Not without a pang of guilt, he realized Jack had run because he had shown him no trust.

He would have never told him about Mars because he would have never believed it.

"I really deserve to be nobody."

Matthew grinned and sat on a chair.

"History hasn't only been written by _condottieri_, you know, Shaun?" he replied scratching his stubble. "There were many nobodies in the Brotherhood, too, but that doesn't mean they were not important."

He took a sheet out of a printer that had did nothing but humming since Shaun had arrived, and handed it to Shaun.

"_Vesalius_?" was Shaun's only comment. "_Humani Corporis Fabrica_ Vesalius was an Assassin?"

"Well, Flavia only mentions an Andreas van Wesel jr. in her memories." Matthew shrugged and grinned. "Probably, for Flavia and the others, Andreas was only… their friend Andreas. But sometimes it's better to be just an Average Joe, than being applauded as a hero and then being used by ill-intended people for questionable purposes. Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, for example, you do have an entry about him?"

Shaun nodded.

"That's it. You have no idea of how many Fascist officials used his name for propaganda. The poor commander must have turned in his grave ten times every time a Fascist spoke his name."

"He surely isn't turning in his grave right now" Shaun answered opening a browser page. "They have pulled him out to investigate on the causes of his death. Just now, I mean. I highly doubt we could make justice, even if Jack manages to find the descendants of that surgeon."

Matthew chuckled.

"Know what? I think Christmas won't be so dull this year, with a scream like you."

Shaun got back his cup of tea and started drinking when the door slammed open and Sharifa Pritchard and her funny striped two-tipped hat stormed into the room.

"Boys… you got to come, you got to come and see!"

Shaun had to hold himself back not to squirt tea out of his mouth, or worse, out of his nose like had happened when he was a kid.

"Whazzup? Sharifa, don't tell me you've found Minerva in your room 'cause I don't believe you" Matthew grimaced.

"Shut your sewer and come!"

She grabbed his wrist and dragged him in the next room. Not finding anything better to do, Shaun laid his cup down and followed them.

That tea would have gotten disgustingly cold, but never mind.

When he arrived, Sharifa and Matthew were sitting in front of a computer screen, another Assassin looked at them from behind, and the screen was full with pictures and messages.

In one there was a sign, with the Assassin insignia and a sentence in Italian that Shaun, with his poor language skills, managed to translate to "only Desmond can save us".

One was visibly a picture of a Twitter page, full with the hashtag "#DesmondMiles". Many of the tweets also included the words "thank you". Shaun could not help grinning when he found out one of the tweets was also thanking him.

Someone had painted on the wall of a school a graffiti of an eagle, the same eagle Desmond had had on his tee.

"I guess the Erudito Collective has made a good job spreading the news" Matthew commented. "I'm talking to you, Ayden."

"You should not be talking only to me" the man called Ayden shrugged and pulled out a flash drive from a pocket. "Shaun, right?" he addressed him. "I've copied it all here. Take all the stuff, there's even a guitar solo written for us by a girl, and forward it to Bill. If there's a moment in which he may need something like that… well this is the moment."


	4. Dec 24 - William Miles (and guest star)

**_Yeah, you read well, there's a guest star in this chapter!_**

**_Haytham has nothing to do with the series, but he's one of those characters you don't know whether to love or loathe. I mean he's a victim just like Ziio or Connor. He's not like De Sable or Rodrigo or Cesare. So at a point I thought what would it be if once in a while he looked at Connor just as a boy, at the Homestead and at the peace despite the freedom in there._**

**_That would not convince him, but he'd see it anyway._**

**_Oh and I don't ship Connor/Dobby. I just know she's the only woman who actually flirted with him, so it'd have been funny seeing Dobby kiss Connor under the mistletoe!_**

* * *

December 24 – William Miles (guest star: Haytham Kenway)

He took a last peek at the attachments of Shaun's email and let slip a grin.

Desmond was still unconscious in the bed near the desk, but he seemed to be better at least.

The Assassins had never really celebrated Christmas, but when Desmond had been a small boy, it had been a chance like another to be together.

Before the Purge.

Before William, taken away by duty, had lost the bond he had had with him.

Even if, for him, it would have never meant nothing more than that, that was not the way he had planned to spend Christmas.

Not with Desmond unconscious. Not under another Sword of Damocles.

He had imagined totally a different scene for that night.

_It's about time you wake up, Des._

He still hoped the day after could have been just like he had imagined it.

Maybe it was time for that poor old man to let go that illusion.

_Christmas miracles don't exist._

* * *

_Many years before_

People kept talking about Christmas miracles. Every year, in that same period, he saw families reunited, rich giving to the poor, children promising to be "good", people knelt in churches.

Haytham knew better. _Christmas miracles don't exist._

It was just the same old sham every year.

Whatever "miracle" happened, the day after it would have been undone and forgotten.

He did not know for what reason he had decided to go to Crazy Davenport's homestead, alone, almost unarmed, with hardly a horse.

It was freezing. It snowed. He already had had to kill two wolves and a cougar.

His boots were so wet it seemed he had his feet in two sponges.

So why was he there?

He didn't know. He had felt like going there. Probably to leave the city bedlam and try to spend some time with his son, even if from a distance.

His son. It seemed still strange, thinking of him as one. His son, his enemy, his blood, the woodworm gnawing at the foundations of his Order.

He doubted that in the settlement around the Homestead the situation would have been much quieter than in the cities. Yet, looking from a distance…

… it almost seemed to him one of the many Nativity scenes he had seen in his years in England and Europe.

Candles lit behind every window. People in the streets despite the snow and the icy mud. Some roofs and doors had been adorned with what seemed mistletoe.

There were families, children, old men, even a baby in his mother's arms.

And that one over there… wasn't he…

_Connor_. In person. Bareheaded, grinning and joking, getting pelted with snowballs by kids and then getting a well-deserved revenge.

Haytham had to hold back a lump in his throat as he realized that he had seen a side of his son he had never seen. He had seen his human side.

He tried to get closer. A young woman had approached Connor.

Dobby Carter, according to his informers. She had given them too many tough nuts to crack, in New York. And there she was again.

Under the mistletoe.

Pointing it to Connor.

Noticing his son's embarrassed face as he kissed the girl, Haytham couldn't help grimacing and taking a hand to his forehead.

_If you'll ever chase after a woman, son… well, you have a long way to go._

He almost did not notice that, among laughter and applause, Connor had turned.

Towards him.

His embarrassed grin had faded. He was wary again, his eyes opened, ready to lunge, just like another wolf ready to leap at its prey. Or at a threat.

He had seen him.

Haytham closed his eyes and sighed.

Connor chilled out again, smiled and shook his head. Dobby approached him again and put a hand on his shoulder.

"What have you seen over there?"

Haytham hastily hid behind a tree. He was officially _doomed_.

"_Nothing_."

He turned his heels, started walking away, and broke into a run.

After all, he had obtained what he had wanted, hadn't he?

He had seen his son. He had seen the boy behind the Assassin.

That hardly called small village was surely imbibed with sham just like New York or London. It was absolutely sure he couldn't have seen it the same way any other day.

Christmas miracles don't exist, Haytham kept thinking rushing back to the small tree where he had tied his horse and riding back to the inn where he had rented a room for the night.

They don't exist.

_Do they_?

* * *

_**Brace yourselves-**_

_**DESMOND IS NEXT!**_


	5. Dec 25 - Desmond Miles

_**This was meant to be uploaded an hour ago, but I had the worst case of writer's block I could get: the bad mood-induced one.**_

_**And I think bad mood totally can sum not getting any present because my dad forgot I wanted the AC Encyclopedia and my mum protested when I asked for a Connor tee.**_

_**I swear, since my sister has started uni, whenever she's home, she's an attention magnet!**_

_**Anyway, at least my cousins appreciating their presents made me a bit happy.**_

_**I hope you appreciate reading my story as much as I appreciated writing it.**_

_**Merry Christmas, one more time.**_

* * *

Alessio leaned on the wall and sat down, then he laid with his back on the floor. The cold ground was the only thing that could ease the pain in some way, but he could not help chattering his teeth.

He did not know why the other boys avoided that part of the galleries, but that night he had discovered that they would have never followed him there. He could be safe, more or less, if he settled down there.

After months going back and forth, he could finally sleep in one place. Now he just needed to find some rags. Or a blanket.

"Do you really think you're safe now?"

He sat up. That voice surely meant no good.

"You're suffering from illusions if you think you're going to win, Desmond."

_Desmo_? Who was that?

Alessio stood up and looked around. There was nobody. Or better… there actually was someone, but she looked like a ghost.

A woman. Dressed strange.

She seemed to him a mix between a nun and a whore, even if he had not seen many whores in his eight, almost nine, years of life.

There was no one else, apart from her.

Desmo, or whatever was his name, was bound to be invisible.

"Go away, Sora Mignotta, this is my place!" he pointed menacingly at her, even if his right hand was covered in bruises.

"Anything you and your friends could do, will not stop my revenge. You wanted to make your choice, like you wish you nonentities could do. Do not think you can stop me, not now. The men will fall again."

Anything Sora Mignotta was saying, Alessio could understand her intentions were not good at all. The invisible man was probably fighting against her.

And if Sora Mignotta had not taken over the world yet, that probably meant Desmo was winning.

"Don't give up, man! Desmo… kick her ass, got it? Kick her fuckin' ass!"

* * *

"_Are you sure of your plan, Mars?"_

"_Are you sure of _yours_, Minerva? Desmond will surely choose the path with less bloodshed. And after all he has seen, he'd never accept people to kill in his name."_

* * *

Bill, is Desmond awake? If he is, tell him Rusty and I wish him a Merry Christmas!

Rebecca

* * *

"_He'd never accept your mother reducing mankind in a state far worse than the minions of the Cross could do. Instead, your Marcello might walk the path of selfishness. Or John could not find the Stone and the Book in time. I have not forgotten, Mars, it was you who led the men into war."_

"_Sure, and you have covered my name in mud in the whole Greece. I would call that a tie." A grunt and a chuckle. "A man raised to love others will not put himself before the world."_

* * *

William, I'm still in London with Matt Ackermann, Sharifa Pritchard and Ayden Kartal. That memory book can do much more than freeing Jack from the Bleeding Effect. I'll make sure to be back before New Year's Day, you only have to find someone willing to read the whole autobiography as Rebecca and I monitor Jack in the Animus.

Shaun.

P.S.: Has Desmond decided to go into hibernation?

* * *

"_Why don't you… why can't you think about something to prevent your mother from being freed?"_

"_It will keep happening if we don't let her go. There could be more solar storms. She'll have more chances. No, we have to let her out. We have to play her game. And then… as soon as she will be ready to take over… we strike."_

* * *

**December 25 – Desmond Miles**

He had no clue of the reason why he felt so small.

He ached something like everywhere, but it seemed to be getting better.

He felt his eyelids heavy. He tried to open his eyes anyway.

He did not remember much of how he had ended up in there. He didn't even know where "there" was.

It took him a while to understand he hadn't gotten small. The size of the bed seemed normal.

Yes, he was in a bed.

It was too big, instead, the sleepwear someone had put him in.

He struggled again to open his eyes.

It wasn't too much of an improvement. He was in a semi-dark room, apart from some blurred red lights on a wall.

He blinked. It was numbers.

In the first line, there were two zeros and a thirty. In the second, a twelve, a twenty-five and another twelve.

He only needed to turn his head to realize the numbers were projected by a clock on the bedside table.

_Half past midnight._

_December 25._

And if he was in a room, with walls, an electric clock and… wasn't there a computer on the desk?, then the world had not burnt.

Another noise drew his attention. Someone was snoring.

He raised his head, then tried to sit up. He felt shattered, but he could not help grinning when he realized the sleeping man was his father, slouched in a chair, with a hand on the mouse but his face turned towards him.

Maybe he had planned to stay up all night, but tiredness had won over him.

He was human after all.

Desmond tried to call him, but a cough suffocated his words.

But William Miles had stirred.

"… Dad?"

He moved again.

"Merry Christmas, Dad."

His father opened his eyes, had a start, then he grinned at him.

He seemed to be on the edge of saying something, but he only sighed.

"Merry Christmas, Desmond."

And all the world could just wait.


End file.
